The Weekly Blab 4.7

The Weekly Blab

Volume 4, Issue 7—November 31, 2009

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving, and enjoyed their holiday turkey, turduckin,
ham, or whatever. At the Szafran homestead, we had a 14 pound turkey for the three
of us, which translates into lots of leftovers. After three days, I gave up the ghost
and said enough, at least until Christmas. We didn’t do too much—read some books,
watched some good soccer on TV (Chelsea is number 1! Go Drogba!), and watched Cliff
Richard and the Shadows 50th Anniversary Reunion Concert.

We now enter holiday party season, so everyone should watch their weight, or else
you won’t be allowed to graduate (thanks to Ronny Richardson for spotting and sharing!).

New Program Update

The letter of intent for the M.S. in Architecture is essentially complete and will
be going downtown in the next day or so. We had a meeting with our colleagues at
Georgia Tech, and they made a small number of helpful suggestions about the LOI, and
said they would not oppose this degree.

The letter of intent for the DPS is also almost ready—we’re just waiting on some supportive
comments from other USG institutions.

Follow-up on Free Speech on Campus

Back in issue 4.3 of the Blab, the subject of political diversity was discussed, which is one of a
group of free-speech issues that pop up on campuses from time to time, and is always
interesting. Well, the issue is back in the form of a call to action from the AAUP and the College Art Association (also supported by the MLA, AFT, and
several other organizations). The statement asks colleges and universities to defend
free speech against violence, the proximate issue being Yale University Press’ decision
to remove cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed from a book they’re publishing, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen. The Yale University Press stated that it was removing the cartoons
due to fear of violence. The author wasn’t happy about the decision, but ultimately
agreed to it.

This is one of those situations where there’s lots to criticize. Supporting freedom
of speech against violence is like mom and apple pie. Who doesn’t want to support
freedom of speech? The idea of removing the actual cartoons from a book that’s about
those very cartoons is absurd on its face. While there might be an argument in favor
of not publishing the book at all, publishing it without showing what it’s actually
about pretty much defines the word “ridiculous”.

That having been said, why was there so much anger and even violence about these cartoons?
Without a doubt, there were extremist opportunists who used the publication of the
cartoons to advance their own twisted agendas. However, there were also many people
who were honestly and deeply offended by them, and who wants to purposefully offend
people, especially on sensitive matters like religion?

The cartoons were insensitive or offensive on several levels. First, Islam (like
Judaism and Christianity) forbids the making of graven images, and this is a serious
prohibition among Sunni Muslims, doubly so for images of the Prophet. Second, several
of the cartoons were not only images of the Prophet Mohammed, but depicted him as
a terrorist, with the horns of a devil, or in other offensive ways. Third, the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten deliberately courted controversy by sponsoring the creation
of the cartoons and by publishing them in order to (as they put it) contribute to
the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship, fully knowing that creating
images of the Prophet Mohammed was problematic—in fact, one cartoon (which they published)
showed someone writing “The culture editors of the Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of
conservative agitators” on a chalkboard.

What led the newspaper to sponsor the contest, asking Danish cartoonists to draw the
Prophet Mohammed as they saw him, was prompted (believe it or not) by a Danish children’s
book entitled The Qur'an and the Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Kåre Bluitgen. Mr. Bluitgen was writing this book to explain Islam to Danish
children, and reportedly could not get cartoonists to draw pictures of the Prophet
Mohammed for his book because the cartoonists feared reprisals by extremists. The
book was ultimately published, with an anonymous illustrator. Pretty ironic.

So there are lots of things to condemn here—the violence that followed the publication
of the cartoons, the Yale University Press for censoring the book, and the newspaper
for deliberately agitating the issue. There’s a lot more to condemn, too, as seen
in some Danish editorials.

Follow-up on Higher Education and Manufacturing Automobiles

Followers of the Blab will also recall that way back in issue 4.2 I talked about how there have been lots of articles lately about how Universities
need to change, and using what’s happened to the automobile companies as an analogy
as to why. One of the articles mentioned was written by Hamid Shirvani, the President
of California State University—Stanislaus, and appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Apparently the article didn’t go down too well with the faculty and staff there—a
new Chronicle article details that a vote of no confidence in Dr. Shrivani has taken place, and passed
by a margin of 91%. The faculty spokesperson cites the earlier article as one of
the major items that led to the vote. So, no free speech for Dr. Shrivani.

As is often the case, the blogged responses to the article are as interesting as the
article itself. The earlier responses took the “what do you expect California to
do?” tack. California is in the middle of a huge tax shortfall, and (the argument
goes) must therefore cut expenses, and higher education must get a share of the cuts.
This is reasonable enough, though there’s more to the story. States always get hit
hard following a major national recession, because tax revenue will be down. To balance
their budgets (which most are constitutionally mandated to do), they then cut services
(which includes higher education), further increasing unemployment and reducing tax
revenues. It then takes several years for them to climb out of the downward spiral
hole. Cutting higher education also means that there will be fewer trained graduates
to help pull the state up as times improve. Economists are already talking about
a “lost decade” for states coming out of this recession. Hopefully, this talk will
prove to be overblown.

Diversity in the Classroom

I got two more responses to my question: “How do you bring diversity issues into the
classroom?”

Rich Halstead-Nussloch (IT) wrote: “In my Research Methods and Presentations, I have
students utilize a globe, world map, or Google Earth to present a short story about
themselves and/or their professional experience. Last Tuesday we had pizza in class,
and everybody showed on Google Earth where they had a memorable pizza. It was a poignant
and bonding experience, which engaged everyone. It touched the USA, Canada, Asia,
Africa, Australia, Europe, and Afghanistan. At least 5 different cultures were described
and amalgamated through pizza. We learned a lot, practiced making presentations and
had fun too. BTW, the students requested and organized this all themselves.”

Mark Stevens (ETCMA) wrote: “In selecting literature for my British classes, I consciously
work in authors from across the British Empire: So we do a slave narrative of Olaudah
Equiano in Brit Lit I, and some Caribbean, Indian, and African authors in Brit Lit
II. In the contemporary novels class I'm teaching this semester, we read a novel
by an African-American author (Toni Morrison) and one by a Hispanic writer from the
Dominican Republic (Junot Diaz).

In both classes, I assign personal journals relating the literature we're reading
to the students' lives, and a few randomly chosen students per class session read
their entries to the class, which allows for lots of diverse outlooks and revelations.”

Please share your stories on this subject.

This Week’s Trivia Contest

In honor of Joel Fowler’s excellent talk on random numbers earlier this week, this
week’s trivia contest will be on numbers and Math. The winner gets a They Might Be
Giants CD from the vast Szafran repository of duplicates. The most correct answers
takes the prize!

What is the origin of the word “mathematics”?

What is the peculiar distinction for the number 243,112,609 – 1?

The number system in many European nations (France, for example) is both decimal and
vigesimal. What does this mean?

And two hard ones:

When the visitor to the national park noticed that there were mama snakes and papa
snakes, but no baby snakes, what was the explanation?

In topologic Hell, what kind of bottles is beer packed in?

Last Week’s Contest:

Kimberley Bell (Continuing Ed) won the prize, which was a Jazz CD, with an awesome
four correct. The correct answers were:

What is the capitol of Turkey? Ankara

Which famous American advocated for having the turkey be the national symbol, instead
of the eagle? Ben Franklin

Where do the French (and Israelis, for that matter) think that turkeys originally
came from, as indicated in their word for the bird? India (the French word is coq d’Inde, and the Hebrew is tarnegol hodu —both meaning chicken of India)

And two hard ones:

In what Broadway show was the Turkey Trot dance first popularized? Sunshine Girl

The drink “Southern Death Cult” is made, in part, with Wild Turkey. What other two
liquors are used in the drink? Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort